


Bus Station

by Diaph



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Falling In Love, Family, Fluff, Military, clexa au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 04:17:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10677516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diaph/pseuds/Diaph
Summary: Lexa is coming home after being discharged from active service with an injury. All flights to Richmond, VA have been cancelled and she needs to get home in time for her son's birthday. To her surprise, she meets the charming doctor, Clarke, from Bagram Air Base who saved her leg and she just so happens to be travelling in the same direction. When Clarke invites her to ride back home to Richmond on buses through the night... Lexa couldn't have anticipated what she would be getting herself into.





	Bus Station

Lexa was glad to be free of the airport. The tunnel between the aircraft and the main building was the worst, the limp she now carried around meant she was the last out of her seat, dragging herself towards the galley in her combats with a general issue holdall smacking her shoulder, praying the air hostess wouldn’t say thank you for your service. They always said thank you for your service. Without fail, Lexa always automatically thanked them for their service too as some kind of petty revenge. Maybe then they would know how weirdly uncomfortable and awkward it felt to have strangers thank you for turning up to your job.

True to form the air hostess thanked her for serving, Lexa thanked her in return for the extra pudding cup on her meal tray. The tunnel was dimly lit and quiet, a sea of bodies all waiting around inside of the terminal noticed as she emerged, some stared at her leg and made pitiful little faces, others rushed forward to shake her hand, most of them said thank you for your service, a few of them saluted, there was a special place in hell reserved for the ones who saluted, she decided that after her first tour.

Lexa could map out the time constraints of these interactions with the public. It took ten minutes of handshakes, five minutes of listening to someone’s pops tell her about his Vietnam days with a reminiscent grin, there was always a pops who served in Vietnam or the Gulf and dutifully Lexa always nodded along and winced through the stories. Then there were the little kids who itched to step forward and high-five her. She always made time to high-five the little kids. Once all these things were ticked off then, and only then, was she allowed to leave… though, the end of this tour brought one new addition to the already lengthy list.

“What happened?” the little girl blurted and pointed at the strapped brace either side of Lexa’s leg.

Lexa almost flinched at the bluntness of the question, burned pink in embarrassment when the mother leaned down and hushed her daughter with an apologetic little look thrown at the soldier. The girl was maybe six, that made it easier, there was something about the ruthless frankness of children that relaxed Lexa. They were battlefields and she understood them expertly.

“It’s okay, really.” Lexa said and forced a smile, did her best to crouch down but without the use of her knee it was more of a stoop. “Have you ever seen Buggs Bunny?”

“Mhmm,” the girl nodded and clutched her doll.

“A piano fell on me from a second-storey window and that’s how I hurt my leg.”

“Like Buggs Bunny?” the girl burst into pure gut-splitting laughter. “A piano?”

“I was surprised too.” Lexa smirked and ruffled her hair.

She stood up again and the mother softened into a small thank you, no doubt relieved she wouldn’t have to explain the extent of what soldiers did or the fact they sometimes got hurt for a while yet. Lexa just nodded, wished them a safe flight and limped down the marble slope towards customs.

“Where are you flying home too?” the officer asked and stamped her passport.

“Home.”

“Where might that be?” he chuckled.

“Richmond, Virginia.” Lexa muttered tiredly.

“Good luck with that.” he sighed and searched for the right stamp in his draw. “All flights east are grounded. Storm Claudette is moving in fast as a bitch! If I were you get a room for the night and hope for the best tomorrow.”

There was a weather warning on the flight. The pilot mentioned something about a storm after they finally took off from Frankfurt and the wicked turbulance up the coast of South Carolina confirmed his predictions, none the less, Lexa clung to a bit of hope that Claudette would have enough mercy to let her get home for Aiden’s birthday.

“There’s absolutely no flights?” Lexa confirmed, mouth worked into her teeth.

“There’s a freight leaving for South Dakota if you feel like checking out Mount Rushmore? Other than that, like I said, get a room and hope for the best tomorrow.” he gave a husky laugh and slid the stamped passport underneath the glass.

“Thanks for your help.” Lexa mumbled and slid the holdall over her shoulder.

“Wait, Miss!” he said urgently as she stepped aside.

“Yeah?” she darted back hopefully, because maybe, just maybe, Claudette was feeling particularly merciful today.

“Thank you for your service.” he saluted, chest puffed out and all.

“Yeah, thanks.” Lexa stopped herself giving into an eye roll and marched off towards the arrivals exit.

Weather like this so close to the weekend meant car rentals would be in short supply and Lexa was still resourceful as ever beneath her indignation. Frustrated as she was, desperate and unashamed, she purposefully exagerrated her limp and muttered annoyed curse words to herself as she slipped on the ‘Injured Hero’ emblazed cap given to her by some do-gooder back at the hospital in Frankfurt.

Her leg wasn’t a particularly heroic injury, she didn’t know if that was better or worse. She’d worked in logistics her whole career, drove rigs down dangerous roads back and forth between bases with anything from automatic weapons to toothpaste in the back. She wasn’t the hero everyone fetishised and she never wanted to be either. Now she’d forever be correcting people thanks to the damn shrapnel that struck her leg.

It wasn’t even a bad injury, that’s what they said at first. Standard sweep and clean, a few months of rehab and she’d be back on the Kandahar supply run within the year. But things were never allowed to be simple like that for Lexa, never allowed to be easy or mendable, she was dead set that it was this fact above the rest that caused the infection. Next thing she knew a standard sweep and clean became a below the knee amputation.

It probably would have been easier if they just cut it off. Anya lost her leg and she was doing just fine, still ran marathons and only ever had to check in with the V.A for new prosthetics once in a blue moon. But again, nothing was ever easy or straight-forward, which of course was why Lexa had to be graced by some holier-than-thou surgeon she never even had the privilege of meeting who somehow saved what little was left of her leg, if it could even be called that anymore.

All of this in it’s totality, right from the weak-point in the driver side door that shattered her shin to that stupid doctor who couldn’t just follow the ‘cut right here’ line she drew below her knee for kicks was why Lexa didn’t feel even a tiny bit guilty for playing the wounded veteran in every rental place she hopelessly dragged herself in.

An hour past by the time she dragged herself out of the Avis cabin out front, marking off the last hire place off her hitlist. She had to finally concede there wasn’t a car rental place between here and Knoxville, Tennessee with so much as a beat up Prius left. She should have known because true to form, of course nothing ever came easy for the soldier.

“I’ve watched you limp around here for the last hour looking for a rental and I want you to know, if by some miracle you guilt some poor guy into giving you one, I have no problem with fighting you for it.”

Lexa snapped around at the voice and eyed the woman on the bench. She was an army woman too, stretched out, sunken in her seat with her arms crossed and the same tell-tale expression that meant she’d just finished shaking hands and cringing through salutes from the public.

“Don’t let the limp fool you I could still paint your ass across this sidewalk.” Lexa fronted terribly and earned a wide grin.

“Is that so?”

“Wanna find out?”

The woman laughed and shook her head, it was genuine and in some small way it made Lexa feel better. That feeling was short-lived, because, of course, nothing could ever just be easy. She shifted just slightly and set her hands on her knees, revealing the insignia over her uniform.

Lexa caught a glimpse of the golden oak leaf on her chest and with an automatic urge of muscle stood to attention. She immediately felt stupid for it, enough so to clench her eyes and admonish herself quietly for being such an idiot.

“Still want to paint my ass across the sidewalk?” the officer asked, teasing and amused.

“No Major…”

“Griffin.” she replied. “Major Clarke Griffin.”

“No ma’am, I don’t want to paint your ass across the sidewalk ma’am.” the words couldn’t leave her mouth fast enough and she stared right ahead out of habit. “I’m sorry, if, well, if I knew-"

“Knew I was an officer?”

“Yes,” she blurted nervously, “I never would have-”

“Disrespected your superior.”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am.”

“Don’t call me ma’am, I work for a living.” she rolled her eyes and stepped closer. “I’m also fucking with you.” she whispered and gave her a look.

“Thank god.” Lexa breathed a sigh of relief and softened her posture just slightly.

“I take it you’re not active duty?” she glanced at the cap.

Lexa nearly snatched the damn thing right off her head, would rather stuff that stupid hat in her asshole than wear it in front of the brash officer. Tentatively, she hid it behind her back and tucked a wisp of hair around her ear.

“Honorably discharged.” she admitted.

“Then why are you standing to attention?”

“Habit, ma’am.”

“Don’t call me ma’am.” she repeated sternly.

“What should I call you?”

“Well, Griffin seems appropriate.”

“Okay.”

“What should I call you?”

“Staff Sergeant Woods.” she blinked nervously, “Or, you know, just Woods works fine too.”

“Woods feels less professional.” the officer smiled softly and patted her shoulder. “Well,” she looked up at the brooding sky, there were dark angry clouds overhead that blew through on fast winds that made easy work of clearing the streets. “it looks like we’re going to be stuck here for a while, you may as well join me for a beer Woods?”

She was beautiful, back in Afghanistan that would be the last word to sit in Lexa’s mind, but here they were on home soil and this woman… she was beautiful. In Afghanistan she’d probably use every vile word in the English language to quietly describe the major, in fact she was certain there were soldiers who already had. 

She was just one of _those_ officers. The ones who were slightly arrogant and thought they knew it all. The ones who inevitably always made more work for the soldiers in their charge. Lexa could tell these things like a gypsy reading divination, she saw it in the way this girl moved, the way she wore her slick smirk, the way she talked like they were one in the same.

But Lexa wasn’t a soldier anymore.

“Sure… a drink sounds good.” Lexa smiled.

Clarke grinned and grabbed her rucksack from the bench, she quickly leaned down for Lexa’s holdall too, even managed to slip it half way up her arm before Lexa’s frustration simmered into a tiny burst of anger.

“Don’t do that!” she huffed and snatched her possessions out of the officer’s grasps. “I’m not an invalid.” she mumbled and clutched at her holdall.

“No… you’re definitely not.” she broke into a little smile. “Sorry, you can carry mine too if you want?”

“Is that a joke?”

“Yes. I mean, unless you really want too.” she offered the rucksack forward with a wry grin.

Lexa rolled her eyes and made some small noise in acknowledgement, slipping the holdall over her shoulder and limping along at the side of her new companion into the parking lot. Not even on home soil for more than an hour and she was already grouching and letting her temper slip, she let herself off the hook this time though because no-one carried her bags for her, that was rule number one on the functionally disabled rule list.

There were other rules, no free drinks from guilty civillians looking to make themselves feel better. No disabled parking spaces. Home help, therapy and cutting lines at the grocery store were on the banned list too. Cutting lines at Disneyland should have made the cut but Lexa was stubborn, not stupid.

The clicking sound of luggage wheels slipping over gravel in every direction served as the metronome Lexa used to try and set the rhythm of her pace. It was a doomed effort, apparently no amount of determination or exercise could regenerate the muscle and nerve some scalpel-happy surgeon sloughed off her leg, it didn’t stop her trying though, the fact the officer refused to slow down to a dordling pace made her feel better, she hated when people did that.

“Where you travelling home from anyway?” Clarke asked over her shoulder.

“Afghanistan I guess… there was a stop-over in Germany.”

“I was stationed in Germany,” Clarke hummed and held the bar door open, “How long was your flight stop-over?”

“three months.”

“No shit?” she murmurred and blinked as the soldier dragged herself through the door frame. “Did they refuel the plane with a shot glass?”

The bar was hot and crowded, full of different groups of people crowding together in booths eating wings and drinking warm beer as if they brought a slice of their hometown divebars with them to the outskirts of the airport. The music was too loud for conversation and the cacophony of voices shouting over it added to the claustrophobia of it all.

People moved out of the way for them, stepping backwards and tugged their friends too at the sight of two soldiers in their army greens. Lexa hated that, the look in their faces, as if they were an entire genus separated on the map of evolution. It was a pretense of respect, a little game she couldn’t wait to finish, the way people treated her with special gloves because they fetishised her job.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” Clarke whispered, reading her expertly, she briefly let her hand settle on the small of Lexa’s back before she set off for the bar.

Twenty minutes later, they were sat on the back of the metro transit doing circles around the airport with beers in paper bags and a home-made bottle opener. Apparently it wasn’t the officer’s first rodeo, she made quick work of the bartender, paid for two beers and brought back six thanks to the do-gooder patrons perched around on bar stools, they snuck out after that and slipped on the empty airport shuttle.

“Dare I ask what happened?” Clarke nodded to Lexa’s prone leg as the carriage jolted along the tracks.

“Nothing interesting if that’s what you mean.”

“I’m a surgeon so yeah, it’s probably interesting to me.”

Lexa pulled her mouth away from the bottle and shot her a little look. “You’re a surgeon?”

“Don’t look too surprised.”

“No, no, it’s not that.” Lexa mused and passed back the bottle opener. “I just put you down as a logistics woman too.”

“Ah, so that’s why you’re so uptight.” Clarke nodded and smirked, taking a swig of her own beer. “I thought maybe it was the mangled leg but logistics? that explains everything.”

Lexa breathed a laugh, grateful not to be the subject of pity from this stranger. The carriage was strangely cosy, completely empty save for a small handful of tourists waiting for their stop. The view outside was consistent, just different bits of grey concrete caught in floodlights, and maybe just for once today, something was allowed to be easy.

“I’m not uptight.” Lexa levelled a little look.

“Nah, you are. I’ve got you figured Woods.”

“How’s that?”

“You joined up straight out of school, probably to pay for college or because you wanted an adventure, and before you knew it you were thirty and Afghanistan made more sense to you than home-”

“I like trucks.”

“What?” Clarke’s mouth fell open.

“That’s why I joined.” Lexa shrugged and wrung her hands, “Utility vehicles, armoured carriers, tanks, GMVs, LAVs, refuellers, sixteen-wheelers. I wanted to drive trucks.” Lexa memorised her favorites easily and reeled them off one by one with a happy sigh.

“You went to war… to drive trucks?”

“I needed a stable job, Griffin.” Lexa smiled sadly. “Everything else was a pretty accurate assessment though. I’m twenty-six.” she added, pretending not to be slightly offended over the added four years.

“To hell with it. Clarke,” she conceded, extending her hand with a smile. “Just call me Clarke.”

“Lexa.” she smiled and shook her hand, wondered if this was how other people made new friends. “I hate it when people call me Woods too.” she explained and fiddled with her thumbs.

“So what’s the plan now you’re home?” Clarke asked and Lexa tried not to look at her, she was all blue eyes and wisps of blonde hair that snuck out of her beret, not a lick of make-up and yet somehow still prettiest thing Lexa had seen since arriving on home soil hours ago.

“I’m not home yet.” she shrugged and stretched her feet across the seats in front of them. “Home is Richmond, Virginia.”

“Me too!” Clarke wiped the corner of her mouth. “Well, close enough. Have you heard of Bon Air?”

That explained even more about this stranger with her charmingly arrogant smirk and high-standing. Bon Air was the affluent part of town attached to the furthest suburbs of Richmond, the place where the wealthy locked themselves behind automatic gates and guarded communities and did whatever it was rich people did. Probably tennis or bridge club, Lexa mused, though she wasn’t entirely sure on what bridge even was.

“Yeah, I cleaned pools there one summer.” she smirked.

“Well I’m from there.” Clarke added, burrowing down into the gap between her knees to unscrew another beer.

“I bet you are.” Lexa muttered and glanced out the window, nursing sips of her own drink.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped up.

“Nothing.”

“Are you trying to say I’m prissy?”

“Nope.”

Clarke inched forward, “It sure as hell sounds like that’s what you’re saying.”

“I’m just saying…” Lexa relented and softened the offended officer’s resolve with a smile. “Young army surgeons with gold oak leaves stamped on their uniform don’t just crawl out of the projects.”

“I’m not the Fresh Prince of Bon Air if that’s what you’re implying.” Clarke quipped and gulped the last gassy swigs of beer in her finished bottle. “That,” she groaned in satisfaction, “was not as terrible as desert moonshine.” she slipped the empty brown bottle into the paper bag between her boots.

“Oh, and now I’m supposed to believe the young major from Bon Air knows anything about desert moonshine?” Lexa rolled her eyes and peered at her neighbour curiously.

“Keep talking like that and I’ll break your other leg.” Clarke warned.

Lexa burst into laughter, foamy beer dribbling out the corners of her mouth that she wiped away with a shamefully fast speed. Lexa was relieved she wasn’t here alone. It was a slow realisation, took her a long glance at her neighbour to figure it out, but this was actually fun.

“You’re not as terrible company as I thought you might be.” she conceded to Clarke and shifted to face her, back pressed into the window frame. “What where you doing in Germany?”

“Sex parties mostly. At the weekends we went to feminist think tanks and listened to Gloria Steinem inspired poetry, it felt more like a vacation than an assignment.”

Lexa blinked, opened her mouth and closed it again.

“Again, fucking with you.” Clarke leaned and smiled, “I was stationed at Bagram Air Base and then I took an extension assignment at Landstuhl which I’m completely assuming is where you found yourself too?” she reeled off these small facts succinctly.

“Something like that.” Lexa shuddered at the memory of the military hospital.

“I feel your pain. How bad is the food there?” Clarke commiserated at the sight of Lexa’s expression.

“They don’t call it Dachau for nothing.”

Clarke swished a sip of beer in her cheeks, setting a dead-eyed expression where a smile once was. “Did I mention I’m Jewish?”

In a single moment Lexa felt the air escape her chest and leave her shrivelled and dying in embarrassment. It was violent, all consuming, inescapable, and all she could do was make strange small noises whilst she searched for something to say. Of course Clarke was Jewish, of course she had to make a terrible joke, because nothing could ever just be easy.

“I’m… oh wow, I’m sorry?”

“It’s okay.” Clarke nodded and rolled her lips between her teeth, “After all… I’m just fucking with you again.”

Lexa smacked her arm so hard it would have warranted a court martial less than four days ago. Clarke didn’t mind though, she just chuckled and rubbed what would no doubt be a bruise there, basking in the sight of Lexa’s burned red expression.

The carriage pulled into the platform outside the Robert Kennedy terminal. The doors opened, no one got on, no one got off. Instead, blustering winds invaded the platform and whipped the carriage into a small windtunnel. Together they ducked down and sheltered behind the chairs in front whilst the high-pitched noise of whipping wind battered the platform outside.

It ended after thirty seconds, the sequential beeps fired off and soon the doors closed. The carriage jolted off towards the bus station for the third time and Lexa popped back up, dusting herself off in the process.

“That weather makes me miss Afghanistan.” Clarke complained and pulled her beret off completely. Lexa watched her perform the small action, the way she tucked it for safe keeping in her rucksack and smooth down the stray bits of blonde hair that escaped her standard bun.

“Nah,” Lexa smiled and stared out of the window, mesmerised by the trees that took beating after beating along the parking lots. “This weather is just fine. Nowhere else in the world do you get weather like this. Watch it for long enough and it’ll make you feel better about whatever it is on your mind… like God is angry on your behalf.”

“What’s God angry on your behalf for?”

“Pft,” Lexa chuckled. “Me and God? What are we not pissed off about.”

“I’m being serious,” Clarke nudged her and leaned over her lap to get a better look at the brewing storm outside. “What happened to you to make him so mad?”

“It’s my son’s birthday tomorrow," Lexa admitted and rolled her neck, "and I promised him I’d be there and now? Well, now I’m sat here drinking warm beer with you riding in circles on the airport transit. I don’t want to read too much into it but it kind of feels like a pretty poetic testament to my parenting.”

“You’re a mom?”

“Try not to look too surprised.” Lexa cocked her head at the officer. Clarke’s blue eyes captured her, at first they seemed shocked, then accepting, then saddended.

“You haven’t seen him in how long?”

“Nine months.”

“Oh, wow.” Clarke exhaled sharply.

“Do you know how many birthdays I’ve made it home for?” Lexa said quickly, frustrated with herself and unable to contain that fire. 

It was rare she spoke about her son, she tried not to think about him at all on tour, maybe that made her a terrible mother but it was the only way she could survive being away.

“I’m sure you’re about to tell me?" Clarke listened intently.

“Two.” she blurted, “Nine years old and I’ve been around for two of his birthdays. I’m shooting a twenty percent average. There are moms in jail who are better at momming than me and somehow that kid still looks at me like I’m the greatest thing in the world and I… I can’t let him down again.” Lexa settled in the knowledge and felt her fingers tighten around the neck of the beer bottle. She couldn’t move for it, stilled and beaten by the merciless hot guilt that left treadmarks all over her like car-tyres.

There were warm fingers that wrapped around her shoulder. Lexa kept her eyes closed and rebutted the urge to shake them off. They sat there like that for a moment, carriage loudly jolting along the tracks, lights flickering, beer bottles jangling between their feet, quiet and thoughtful.

Clarke spoke first.

“Sounds like he loves you a lot.”

“More than any one person deserves to be loved.”

She laughed at that.

“What’s his name?”

“Aiden.”

“Well, Sergeant Woods, do you have one last mission left in you?” Clarke hummed thoughtfully and began to pack her things away. Lexa nodded, of course she had a mission left in her, there was the guts left for thousands with only her leg in the way of all of them. “Come on.” Clarke nodded towards the carriage door as the train pulled into the bus station and the sequential beeps sounded loudly.

“Where are we going now?” Lexa complained.

“Home. If you’re up for the challenge?”


End file.
